Spring Lake Park Reserve: Schaar's Bluff

After visiting with family and friends in the Twin Cities, Noelle and I wanted to do a little bit of exploring in the outdoors. After consulting our handy hiking guide, 50 Hikes in Minnesota, it looked like the closest hike to where we spent the weekend would be the a short 3 mile hike in Dakota County Parks' Spring Lake Park Reserve.

The drive to the park was pleasant and led through some of the more agricultural areas of the Twin Cities suburbs. The park itself was very pleasant as well. The hike started near a picnic pavilion and soon entered into some nice deciduous woods. The trail gently wound through the woods and eventually we made our way to the top of the bluff with some sheer limestone cliffs on the river side.

We got some good views of the mighty Mississippi River through the bare trees.

Soon the trail led us down into a small ravine where we crossed a concrete bridge before making our way up and back onto the bluff top.

It was a very pleasant way to spend a Sunday afternoon and we were quite surprised that we didn't see any other hikers while we were out on the trail.